Once Upon A Deadpool: Film Review

Once Upon A Deadpool, or Deadpool 2 the PG-13 version, was a milder, less violent version of Deadpool 2 with a twist. The twist includes an homage to The Princess Bride and an appearance from a full grown Fred Savage. In this version, without much of a spoiler, Deadpool reads Fred a bedtime story which includes, as you might have remembered from The Princess Bride: action, adventure, revenge and true love.

While Fans and Critics mostly panned it, and it has a 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes from both the critics and the fans, I enjoyed the film. I didn’t watch the grittier rated R version. I am not into blood, guts and gore, and even less into foul language (I only use that when I’m especially angry–usually at a specific person :P), so I appreciated the chance to get to see Deadpool without the things that normally push it into rated R territory. There are several jokes about that fact in the Fred Savage scenes as well.

Some surprises for me in the film were:

Domino is more interesting now she has Longshots powers. I didn’t like Domino in the comics, but she’s much more interesting in this incarnation.

Normal people. Without spoilers, it’s pretty funny how many non mutants there are in the story that contribute to it. They are not used as well as they were in the first movie, which is a disappointment to an extent, and probably why this movie isn’t as funny as the first one.

Disappointments:

Cable is not what I thought he would be. As a fan of the comics, I think I expected a little more Cyborg action, but he was mostly a big gun. He didn’t get much by way of dialogue, and I’m not sure they knew what to do with him.

Shatterstar. I absolutely love Mojoverse. I mentioned Longshot before–my favorite character from Marvel comics–and he’s from Mojoverse. You get to see almost nothing of Shatterstar. I get that the rest of the X-Force team were just there to make you think “YAY X FORCE!!” but it was disappointing that all you got to see was Domino.

The movie was entertaining enough for me to purchase the dvd once it was released, though I understand most people were looking for the gritty Deadpool action seen in the first movie and in the rated R version of the second film. Since I don’t care to see more blood and guts, I rather liked this version. I like to laugh. The additional Fred Savage scenes made it funnier to me. It’s not the blood and guts gun porn that most Deadpool fans enjoy, but I’m not that guy (obviously), so it works for me.

I give it 3 out of 5 stars and recommended a viewing, especially now you can rent the DVD instead of paying full price at the theater..